Month: December 2019

“Full Service Presidential Candidate” Yang Raises Eyebrows After Dispensing Whipped Cream In Mouths Of Eager Voters

“Full Service Presidential Candidate” Yang Raises Eyebrows After Dispensing Whipped Cream In Mouths Of Eager Voters

Andrew Yang is just trying to give people $1,000 … and mouthfuls of whipped cream.

The 2020 White House candidate raised eyebrows on Tuesday when he shot whipped cream into the mouths of two kneeling men at the opening of his brand new New Hampshire field office.

“That’s a full service presidential candidate!” Yang exclaims as he dispenses the creamy confection into the first man’s mouth.

As Yang began to shoot more whipped cream into another kneeling man’s mouth, an aide can be heard saying “Stop. That’s enough, that’s enough,” as he corrals the presidential candidate away.

Watch three times; Once to watch Yang with his eager supporters. Then, keep an eye on his aide to see if you can tell the moment visibly dies inside before jumping in. And finally, the expression on the security guard’s face to the far-right is priceless.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 12/04/2019 – 12:43

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Alito Faults Supreme Court for Refusing to Hear ‘Disfavored Speech’ Case

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a pair of cases that together raise fundamental questions about what sort of protections the First Amendment offers to journalists and pundits who weigh in on controversial issues. The Court’s inaction prompted Justice Samuel Alito to take the rare step of chastising his colleagues for failing to get involved. “If the Court is serious about protecting freedom of expression,” Alito wrote, “we should grant review.”

The cases are National Review, Inc. v. Mann and Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Mann. At issue are several blog posts written by the columnists Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn and published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and National Review. The posts criticized the academic work of Michael Mann, a Penn State professor who studies climate change. As Justice Alito put it, Simberg and Steyn “employed pungent language, accusing Mann of, among other things, ‘misconduct,’ ‘wrongdoing,’ and the ‘manipulation’ and ‘tortur[e]’ of data.”

Mann responded by suing for defamation in the District of Columbia’s Superior Court. Mann later prevailed at that court, and then prevailed again at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which rejected an attempt by CEI and National Review to have the cases thrown out on the grounds that Mann’s litigation violated a D.C. law which blocks defamation suits if the offending speech was made “in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest.” Now that the Supreme Court has declined to take up the cases on appeal, the defamation suits will go to trial.

In his dissent from the denial of certiorari, Justice Alito criticized that outcome as constitutionally suspect and faulted the Court for sending a dangerous message about its overall commitment to free speech principles. “The freedom of speech and the press are most seriously implicated,” Alito wrote, “in cases involving disfavored speech on important political or social issues.”

Alito acknowledged that the Court’s inaction does not mean that the matter is closed for good. Indeed, CEI and National Review may go on to win at trial. But as Alito pointed out, “a journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees.” Such costs “may deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to healthy public debate.”

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Alito Faults Supreme Court for Refusing to Hear ‘Disfavored Speech’ Case

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a pair of cases that together raise fundamental questions about what sort of protections the First Amendment offers to journalists and pundits who weigh in on controversial issues. The Court’s inaction prompted Justice Samuel Alito to take the rare step of chastising his colleagues for failing to get involved. “If the Court is serious about protecting freedom of expression,” Alito wrote, “we should grant review.”

The cases are National Review, Inc. v. Mann and Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Mann. At issue are several blog posts written by the columnists Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn and published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and National Review. The posts criticized the academic work of Michael Mann, a Penn State professor who studies climate change. As Justice Alito put it, Simberg and Steyn “employed pungent language, accusing Mann of, among other things, ‘misconduct,’ ‘wrongdoing,’ and the ‘manipulation’ and ‘tortur[e]’ of data.”

Mann responded by suing for defamation in the District of Columbia’s Superior Court. Mann later prevailed at that court, and then prevailed again at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which rejected an attempt by CEI and National Review to have the cases thrown out on the grounds that Mann’s litigation violated a D.C. law which blocks defamation suits if the offending speech was made “in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest.” Now that the Supreme Court has declined to take up the cases on appeal, the defamation suits will go to trial.

In his dissent from the denial of certiorari, Justice Alito criticized that outcome as constitutionally suspect and faulted the Court for sending a dangerous message about its overall commitment to free speech principles. “The freedom of speech and the press are most seriously implicated,” Alito wrote, “in cases involving disfavored speech on important political or social issues.”

Alito acknowledged that the Court’s inaction does not mean that the matter is closed for good. Indeed, CEI and National Review may go on to win at trial. But as Alito pointed out, “a journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees.” Such costs “may deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to healthy public debate.”

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Climate Change Hits Property Prices

Climate Change Hits Property Prices

Authored by Bilal Hafeez via MacroHive,com,

One of the clearest effects of climate change is sea level rise (SLR). The scientific community expects a global average SLR of around 3-6 ft. over the next century. This could affect over 6 million American homes and put one trillion dollars of coastal US real estate at risk. A new paper, Disaster on the Horizon: The Price Effect of Sea Level Rise, by Asaf Bernstein, Matthew Gustafon, and Ryan Lewis finds that exposed properties are starting to sell at a discount.

The Data

The academics combine Zillow US residential data with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) SLR calculator to identify each property’s exposure to SLR. They have over 1.7 million homes in their sample exposed to SLR of between 0 and 6 feet. The most exposed counties are in the gulf region, Washington state, and along the eastern seaboard (Fig. 1, c.f. paper)

Figure 1: Sea Level Exposures by County

Source: Disaster on the Horizon: The Price Effect of Sea Level Rise

For the purpose of their analysis, they restrict their sample to the properties most at risk – those within 0.25 miles of the coast. This allows them to analyse 460,000 sales between 2007 and 2016.

How are Property Prices Affected?

Overall, the team find that coastal properties exposed to SLR sell at a discount of 7%. Breaking the properties down by risk (most risky are those that get inundated by a small rise in sea levels), they find the following:

  • 1 ft. SLR = 15% discount

  • 2-3 ft. SLR = 14% discount

  • 4-5 ft. SLR = 8% discount

  • 6 ft. SLR = 4% discount

Importantly, these properties are unlikely to be flooded for over half a century, which suggest property buyers are pricing long term risks. Supporting this view, they find that rental rates, which reflect the current state of the property, are unaffected by SLR exposure.

Does Type of Property Investor Matter?

Yes. The SLR exposure discount is greatest for markets with sophisticated buyers as proxied by non-owner-occupied properties. Exposed non-owner-occupied properties trade at a 10% discount, compared to unexposed properties. Meanwhile, exposed and unexposed owner-occupied properties trade at similar prices.

However, the team do find that climate beliefs significantly affect the SLR exposure discount in the owner-occupied segment of the market. For example, in areas with high levels of climate change worry, exposed owner-occupied properties sell at an 8.5% discount.

Is the Effect Changing Over Time?

Yes. The discount has increased significantly over time. In their sample, the discount to non-owner-occupied properties was significant from 2007-14, but saw a notable jump after 2014 from 9% to 15%. This was probably due to new data and projections on climate change emerging around that time. Despite this, they don’t find similar increases for owner-occupied properties.

Bottom Line

Sophisticated investors are already pricing in the climate change impact on coastal properties, but it appears that less sophisticated investors are not. This suggests that there is a potential wealth loss that has not fully been appreciated. Notably, if residents in coastal regions are expecting their properties to provide them a pension – they could be in for a surprise. Policymakers will then have to judge whether to “bail” them out.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 12/04/2019 – 12:24

Tags
Environment

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Feds Sue California City Over Law That Mandated Evictions for Criminal Activity—Even When No One Was Arrested or Charged

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing the California city of Hesperia and the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department over a local rental ordinance, passed in 2016, that the DOJ says amounted to illegal racial discrimination.

The Hesperia law required landlords to register their rental properties with the city, submit the names of all adult tenant applicants to the sheriff’s department for criminal background checks, and to include in their leases “crime free” addendums that mandate tenants be evicted for engaging in any criminal activity on or near their property, or in the case of drug crimes, anywhere at all.

In addition, the city’s ordinance required every rental property to undergo an annual police inspection.

The DOJ is arguing that this heavy-handed ordinance was all an effort to keep black and Hispanic renters from moving to Hesperia in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

“Individuals and families have a right to live where they choose, regardless of their race or national origin,” said Anna María Farías, the head of the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity division of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in a press release. “HUD applauds today’s action and will continue to work with the Justice Department to address policies and practices that violate this nation’s fair housing laws.”

Rachel Molina, a spokesperson for Hesperia, told the Los Angeles Times that information on the DOJ’s website was inaccurate and that the city intended to fight the lawsuit.

“We love and embrace diversity in Hesperia,” said Molina to the Times.

In its lawsuit, the DOJ cites statements from Hesperia politicians during debates about the city’s rental ordinance that allegedly reveal the discriminatory intent of the law.

One city council member said the ordinance would help “improve our demographic,” according to the lawsuit. Hesperia Mayor Eric Schmidt is quoted in the lawsuit saying “the people that aggravate us aren’t from here” and “[they] come from somewhere else with their tainted history.”

The DOJ lawsuit argues the sheriff’s department was given a huge amount of discretion in enforcing the city’s rent ordinance, which it used “intentionally to evict and deny housing to African American and Latino renters.”

The complaint lists data uncovered during a HUD investigation which found that black and Hispanic tenants were much more likely to be evicted than white renters, and that a disproportionate number of evictions occurred in majority-minority census blocks.

The lawsuit also details how law enforcement would issue “crime notifications” to landlords that required them to evict their tenants—even in the absence of any arrest or criminal conviction.

In one case cited in the DOJ lawsuit, sheriff’s deputies insisted on the eviction of an elderly Hispanic couple after their adult son—who didn’t live with them—was arrested. In another case, a woman and her three children were evicted after her husband beat her with a television cable. Law enforcement also allegedly told the landlord of a black domestic abuse victim he would have to evict his tenant if she let her abusive husband back in the house.

Hesperia’s rental law has been controversial ever since it was first proposed, managing to unite landlords and tenant advocates in opposition.

The California Apartment Association argued the law was unconstitutional and subjected landlords to huge legal risks for fair housing violations and wrongful evictions, according to the DOJ lawsuit.

In 2016, HUD opened an administrative investigation into Hesperia’s rental ordinance. That same year, a nonprofit housing provider and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city over its law.

In response to that lawsuit, the city in 2017 begrudgingly amended its rental regulations to make tenant screenings and evictions for criminal activity voluntary.

“The government believes criminals are a protected class and law-abiding citizens are now the bad guys,” then-Mayor Paul Russ told the Daily Press at the time.

The DOJ complaint argues that those changes still leave many of the law’s offending provisions in place. The lawsuit demands an injunction to stop future discrimination, and that monetary damages be paid to tenants affected by the law.

Tenant advocates often argue for anti-discrimination laws on the grounds that some private landlords, left to their own devices, will refuse to rent to people because of their race.

Provided all the allegations in the DOJ lawsuit are true, the Hesperia law is an example of the opposite phenomena: city officials decided that landlords were not discriminating enough on racial grounds, and passed a law to make them do more of it.

The city’s law could well turn out to be a violation of federal fair housing law. It is certainly a violation of property rights.

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Feds Sue California City Over Law That Mandated Evictions for Criminal Activity—Even When No One Was Arrested or Charged

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing the California city of Hesperia and the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department over a local rental ordinance, passed in 2016, that the DOJ says amounted to illegal racial discrimination.

The Hesperia law required landlords to register their rental properties with the city, submit the names of all adult tenant applicants to the sheriff’s department for criminal background checks, and to include in their leases “crime free” addendums that mandate tenants be evicted for engaging in any criminal activity on or near their property, or in the case of drug crimes, anywhere at all.

In addition, the city’s ordinance required every rental property to undergo an annual police inspection.

The DOJ is arguing that this heavy-handed ordinance was all an effort to keep black and Hispanic renters from moving to Hesperia in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

“Individuals and families have a right to live where they choose, regardless of their race or national origin,” said Anna María Farías, the head of the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity division of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in a press release. “HUD applauds today’s action and will continue to work with the Justice Department to address policies and practices that violate this nation’s fair housing laws.”

Rachel Molina, a spokesperson for Hesperia, told the Los Angeles Times that information on the DOJ’s website was inaccurate and that the city intended to fight the lawsuit.

“We love and embrace diversity in Hesperia,” said Molina to the Times.

In its lawsuit, the DOJ cites statements from Hesperia politicians during debates about the city’s rental ordinance that allegedly reveal the discriminatory intent of the law.

One city council member said the ordinance would help “improve our demographic,” according to the lawsuit. Hesperia Mayor Eric Schmidt is quoted in the lawsuit saying “the people that aggravate us aren’t from here” and “[they] come from somewhere else with their tainted history.”

The DOJ lawsuit argues the sheriff’s department was given a huge amount of discretion in enforcing the city’s rent ordinance, which it used “intentionally to evict and deny housing to African American and Latino renters.”

The complaint lists data uncovered during a HUD investigation which found that black and Hispanic tenants were much more likely to be evicted than white renters, and that a disproportionate number of evictions occurred in majority-minority census blocks.

The lawsuit also details how law enforcement would issue “crime notifications” to landlords that required them to evict their tenants—even in the absence of any arrest or criminal conviction.

In one case cited in the DOJ lawsuit, sheriff’s deputies insisted on the eviction of an elderly Hispanic couple after their adult son—who didn’t live with them—was arrested. In another case, a woman and her three children were evicted after her husband beat her with a television cable. Law enforcement also allegedly told the landlord of a black domestic abuse victim he would have to evict his tenant if she let her abusive husband back in the house.

Hesperia’s rental law has been controversial ever since it was first proposed, managing to unite landlords and tenant advocates in opposition.

The California Apartment Association argued the law was unconstitutional and subjected landlords to huge legal risks for fair housing violations and wrongful evictions, according to the DOJ lawsuit.

In 2016, HUD opened an administrative investigation into Hesperia’s rental ordinance. That same year, a nonprofit housing provider and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city over its law.

In response to that lawsuit, the city in 2017 begrudgingly amended its rental regulations to make tenant screenings and evictions for criminal activity voluntary.

“The government believes criminals are a protected class and law-abiding citizens are now the bad guys,” then-Mayor Paul Russ told the Daily Press at the time.

The DOJ complaint argues that those changes still leave many of the law’s offending provisions in place. The lawsuit demands an injunction to stop future discrimination, and that monetary damages be paid to tenants affected by the law.

Tenant advocates often argue for anti-discrimination laws on the grounds that some private landlords, left to their own devices, will refuse to rent to people because of their race.

Provided all the allegations in the DOJ lawsuit are true, the Hesperia law is an example of the opposite phenomena: city officials decided that landlords were not discriminating enough on racial grounds, and passed a law to make them do more of it.

The city’s law could well turn out to be a violation of federal fair housing law. It is certainly a violation of property rights.

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Germany Expels Russian Diplomats, Accuses Moscow Of “Bourne-Style” Assassination

Germany Expels Russian Diplomats, Accuses Moscow Of “Bourne-Style” Assassination

Russia’s foreign ministry has slammed Germany for its “unjustified” and “unfriendly” move to expel two of its diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Berlin, in what’s fast becoming a major international row between the two countries. A Russian government spokesman also said it smacked of “Russophobic hysteria”.

Germany says Russia has been uncooperative in the ongoing investigation of the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old former Chechen rebel commander found to have have been shot in the head from behind at a central Berlin park in August. German officials and media said it had all the hallmarks of a covert Russian hit job, alleging the Chechen Islamist who had been wanted by Russian authorities was victim of a brazen state-sponsored ‘assassination’ in a public space, similar to the Skripal case.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili

Germany expelled the Russian diplomats as a punitive action over the case. On Wednesday the Russian Foreign Ministry promised to respond in kind: “We are forced to implement an array of retaliatory measures,” a statement read.

And Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechaev vowed the dramatic moved will inevitably “result in a most negative effect on the Russian-German relationship.”

“There is and there has never been any evidence that Russian governmental structures have anything to do with this incident,” he said, according to Russian media. German investigators also believe officials in the Autonomous Chechen Republic — a federal zone subject of Russia — could be behind the killing.

However, Germany’s federal prosecutor on Wednesday said the targeted killing had Russian state and intelligence fingerprints all over it. “There are sufficient factual grounds to suggest that the killing… was carried out either on behalf of state agencies of the Russian Federation or those of the Autonomous Chechen Republic, as part of the Russian Federation,” the federal prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Open source investigators and media sites later named the suspected killer, now in German custody as Vadim Nikolayevich Krasikov, 54. He had also allegedly killed a businessman in Moscow in 2013. Image via Moscow Times.

The details leading up to the daytime killing sound straight out of a Hollywood script or Jason Bourne movie, as the BBC summarizes:

The suspect was detained shortly after the killing when he was allegedly seen dumping a bike, pistol and a wig into the nearby River Spree. The prosecutor says the suspect flew from Moscow to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris six days before the killing under the alias of Vadim S.

Vadim S appeared for the first time in a Russian domestic passport in 2015. Reports on Tuesday suggested his full name was Vadim Sokolov, 49, although that was not thought to be his real identity.

Vadim S is then said to have flown to Warsaw where he stayed in a hotel until 22 August.

The suspected hitman had been traveling in Germany under the guise of being on a work trip as a civil engineer. 

Khangoshvili, who had years prior reportedly survived another assassination attempt in his native Georgia after being deemed a terrorist by Moscow, had been walking back from a mosque he attended when a man on a bicycle rode up behind him and shot him twice in the back of the head, reportedly with a Glock 26 and silencer.

The killing took place in a popular Berlin park, via EPA-EFE.

Khangoshvili had reportedly fought in the second Chechen war against Russian forces in the North Caucasus in the early 2000’s, as well as against Russia during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

Germany’s Bild newspaper previously noted that Khangoshvili had survived no less than four total assassination attempts before getting asylum in Germany.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 12/04/2019 – 12:06

Tags
Politics

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Oil Slides After Saudis Threaten To Boost Production If Oil Producers Don’t Comply With Output Curbs

Oil Slides After Saudis Threaten To Boost Production If Oil Producers Don’t Comply With Output Curbs

Three days after oil tumbled following a Bloomberg report that Saudi Arabia was angry at its (N)OPEC co-members for not complying with production quotas, and was no longer willing to compensate for excessive production by other members of the cartel, the WSJ reports that Riyadh, furious that the price of oil refuses to rise and set to take Aramco public, is threatening to boost oil production and unilaterally flood the market if “some” OPEC nations continue to defy the group’s output curbs.

The surprising ultimatum which reeks of what Saudi Arabia did in November 2014 when it effectively dissolved the cartel, and flooded the world with oil in hopes of putting shale producers out of business only to fail miserably as it never accounted for cheap money and the greed of US junk bond investors, comes one day ahead of a gathering between OPEC and non-OPEC nations including Russia on Thursday and Friday in Vienna.

As the WSJ reports, at a technical meeting Tuesday, a Saudi delegate said his government is growing tired of indirectly benefiting the budgets of countries that are flouting the OPEC pact by overproducing oil, said a person who was present. If the noncompliance continues, “the Saudi official signaled that the kingdom would begin merely complying with its commitment—rather than overcutting to make up for laggards in the group.”

The target of Saudi ire are reportedly three specific nations, namely Iraq, Nigeria and Russia; this emerged during a slide presentation by a Saudi official who said the trio of oil-producing nations weren’t adhering to the pact that commits the 14 OPEC nations and 10 allied countries to a collective 1.2 million-barrel output curb.

Saudi Arabia, the argument goes, is contending with weak oil prices and members of the cartel who aren’t complying with the collective output cut they agreed to last summer. As a result, the Saudis are considering radical measures, including a new pact that would deepen production cuts although if there is one thing the cartel is notorious for, it is ignoring self-imposed production limits when it suits the individual member states as the Crown Prince is finding out now.

The stakes for Riyadh are huge: the (N)OPEC spat comes as Saudi Arabia is finalizing the IPO of its national oil company, Aramco, and hopes to bring the company public at the highest possible price, however that also needs a much higher oil price. While the company wasn’t mentioned at the meeting, another delegate said the Saudi position was “all about the IPO of Aramco.”

Meanwhile, in a paradoxical twist, with Saudi Arabia raging at Iraq for overproducing, the Iranian neighbor signaled that it, along with other cartel members, favor deepening collective cuts by 400,000 barrels a day. Which of course it is all for… as long as Iraq itself doesn’t have to cut further.

Saudi Arabia indicated privately that it would support such a cut if it received watertight guarantees that current laggards would respect the deal, the WSJ said citing people familiar with the matter. What was left unsaid is that the only reason why the OPEC production cut worked as well as it did and as long as it did, is because Venezuela’s and Iran’s output has collapsed, not because it wanted to but because the two countries had no choice, being subject to US embargo.

In further disappointment to Riyadh, the WSJ gloats that the kingdom “had hoped to keep such option a secret to create an upside surprise in oil prices”, with officials instructed to discuss it face-to-face rather than electronically, one person said. Yet following the WSJ report, the price of oil actually slumped amid fears that Saudi Arabia may have no choice but to boost production as it squares off with increasingly hostile cartel members.

The irony: while a new, lower collective target wouldn’t force Saudi Arabia to carry more reductions, as it is already overcomplying, but others would be unlikely do any cutting, OPEC delegates said. The group has also been looking at extending curbs until end 2020 to avoid a glut. There is one other concern: Russia is emerging as a key obstacle to both deeper and extended cuts, according to OPEC officials. Moscow is seeking exemptions from cuts on its gas liquids and failing that, will stick to keeping curbs until March only, the OPEC delegates said.

What OPEC fails to grasp is that the price of oil is no longer determine my the marginal producer but by the secular decline in demand, and nothing OPEC does can boost that.

 


Tyler Durden

Wed, 12/04/2019 – 11:54

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New Zealand’s Mandatory Buyback Program Leaked Gun Owners’ Personal Info

Law-abiding gun owners who complied with New Zealand’s mandatory gun buyback program and surrendered their assault weapons to the government discovered Monday that their privacy had been compromised by poor website security.

This week, the police website for New Zealand’s mandatory military-style semi-automatic assault weapons (MSSA) buyback was taken offline after a gun dealer told law enforcement that he was able to access users’ personal information through the site. This info included the names, addresses, dates of birth, gun license numbers, and bank account details of users. As many as 38,000 site users may have been affected, and the website will remain shut down until police can guarantee that the information is secure. Law enforcement currently believes that only dealer users had access to the sensitive information, not the public.

New Zealand implemented its gun buyback program after a March 15 attack on two mosques in Christchurch left 51 people dead. Six days after the attack, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that all military-style firearms, like the ones the killer had used, would be banned, in addition to large-capacity magazines and any parts that would make a gun readily convertible into an MSSA (such as telescoping stocks). The ban passed through New Zealand’s parliament, 119-1, in April. Those who owned these guns or accessories were ordered to surrender them to the government.

The Guardian reported that the security breach was made public when the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners (COLFO), a gun lobby group, revealed that 15 people had reached out to them claiming that they were able to access users’ personal information through the buyback portal. The group posted screenshots of the information one of the users had shared with COLFO (the identifying information has been redacted).

COLFO tells Reason that the organization is currently in the process of contacting the 19 individuals who claim to have been able to access sensitive information on the buyback website to “ascertain the extent of the access” each individual had.

New Zealand’s deputy police commissioner, Mike Clement, placed the blame for the breach on SAP, the German company that custom-built the website for the buyback. Clement said that SAP had unintentionally provided some users with greater access to other users’ personal data than should have been possible when it updated the site and that he could not “offer an absolute ironclad” assurance that users’ information had not been abused.

SAP has since claimed responsibility, stating that 66 gun dealer users had accidentally been given access to other users’ private information as a result of human error last week.

New Zealand’s buyback program gives citizens the option to surrender their weapons to gun dealers after they fill out an online form with details about their firearms. New Zealand has no reliable registration records of MSSAs because previous laws made the country’s registration process relatively easy to skirt, so the form helps fill in those gaps. The individual then surrenders their arms to a dealer, who turns the surrendered items over to law enforcement. Dealers are not supposed to have access to individuals’ personal information. In other words, law enforcement betrayed the trust of gun owners who were doing their best to comply with a government-mandated confiscation program.

Roughly 43,000 weapons had been turned in through the buyback so far. The program seeks to completely eradicate the estimated 175,000 MSSAs in private hands by December 20, after which police will begin prosecuting people who have not surrendered their weapons. With only 18 days of the buyback left, only about 25 percent of the guns estimated to be in private hands have been voluntarily surrendered. The owners of the other 75 percent of New Zealand’s MSSAs could face up to three years in prison or a $4,000 fine if they fail to meet the deadline.

The police already think that many people will refuse to surrender their newly-banned firearms. A data breach compromising the personal information of gun owners who complied with the law will surely encourage further noncompliance from those who were already resistant to the idea of turning in their guns.

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A California Cop’s Body Camera Captured Him Fondling a Dead Woman’s Breasts

A veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) captured himself fondling a corpse on his own body camera.

The Los Angeles Times reports that an unnamed officer in the Central Division responded to a call about a dead woman in a residential apartment. After arriving, the officer and his partner concluded that the woman was in fact deceased. When the unnamed officer’s partner returned to the patrol car to retrieve something, the disturbing incident occurred.

The offending officer turned his body camera off and fondled the dead woman’s breasts. When he turned the camera on again, a portion of his actions were captured. When an LAPD body camera is activated, a two-minute buffer saves any audio and visual that occurred prior.

LAPD officials found the footage in a random inspection. Last month, Chief Michel Moore announced that the department would review footage to identify instances of poor policing training and bias.

Josh Rubenstein, a spokesperson for the LAPD, told the Times that an administrative investigation was “immediately launched” and the unnamed officer was placed on leave.

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